Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Progressive Nanaimo Candidates Forum Well Attended

The second new candidates forum hosted by Progressive Nanaimo was very well attended, with organizers having to bring out extra seating on two occasions.

The event was held at Beban Park Social Centre and I estimate 200 were in attendance to listen to 14 candidates for City Council and 7 candidates running for the office of Mayor.

The format of the forum allowed for city council candidates to introduce themselves for 90 seconds and this was followed by a time of direct interaction between candidates and members of the audience. In groups of three, candidates answered questions based on several predetermined topics. Topics included Public Engagement, Social Issuses, Environment, Governance and Development.

This was followed by a forum of Mayoral candidates which also allowed for introductions and then each member had equal time to answer several different questions.

The next forum is scheduled for Oct. 28 with the place and time to be announced at a later date.

The level of public participation, this early in an election perhaps might be a sign of things to come with a much higher voter turnout.

Although I check this website a few times a week, and the local online papers daily, as well as some TV news, I too missed any announcement of this event. After searching I found that a notice was published here on the day of, but I found nothing in the papers.

I went to 2 of these forums last year and am quite disappointed I just found out, the day after, and missed this one. I see there was also one on Sept 17 which was published on Youtube (http://bit.ly/1rdDz4t). I hope this one from Oct 14 will end up on Youtube as well.

And I hope Progressive Nanaimo puts a bit more effort into letting the media know about upcoming events. A simple press release does not cut it, you need to book yourselves an interview with the papers and TV stations. Of course, it's quite possible they did make more of an effort and I completely missed everything that was published & aired, or it's possible the local media simply dropped the ball - which would not shock me.

It's our city and our tax dollars, voter apathy is bad enough and if people who are actually interested in the election do not have knowledge of the candidates, it's going to be tough to get a better council in place for the next 4 years.